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End agitations Small is better Enter Chiranjeevi |
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The water question
Double-digit inflation
Victory for democracy Himachal Pradesh’s unrealistic herbal dreams Is this any way to rebuild Iraq?
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End agitations AS this paper has been pointing out repeatedly from the very start, the ongoing agitation in Jammu is coming in handy for separatists in the Kashmir valley to regroup and advance the cause of their masters across the border. They gathered in strength in Srinagar on Monday and even submitted a memorandum to the United Nations Military Observers Group. That may not make a substantial difference to India as such but was certainly not called for. If it is any consolation, the Coordination Committee comprising both factions of the Hurriyat Conference, lawyers, traders, social and business groups did not submit its memorandum. But there were enough other troublemakers who tried to whip up anti-India sentiments. What cannot be denied is that the agitation by the Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti has given a pretext for separatists who were lying low to revive their nefarious plans. Agitationists in Jammu should realise that the unintended side-effect of their protest is exactly what they want to avoid themselves. The Hindu-Muslim divide is being sharpened by this ill-thought-out agitation. By prolonging it, they are weakening India’s effort to deal with separatism. This is high time wiser counsel prevailed and they resorted to talks instead of the path of agitation. The Sangharsh Samiti must do all it can to bring an early end to the Jammu agitation. The same advice goes out to the agitationists in Srinagar also. They should see through the gameplan of groups owing allegiance to Pakistan. When the traffic is moving freely again and there are normal supplies of goods of all kinds, foods, medicines and essential commodities, the complaint about economic blockade is not valid. Unfortunately, as the elections are due in a few weeks in J and K, political parties are fouling up the atmosphere. They need to rise above partisan interests. It is a pity that even the PDP has been misleading the people and indulging in false propaganda.
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Small is better HIGH oil prices and environmental concerns have prompted the government to consider steps to control fuel guzzlers. Americans are dumping big cars. China has made them more expensive. In a belated move India too plans to raise the taxes on diesel-run SUVs (special utility vehicles). The government will earn additional money, which can be spent on road construction and pollution control, while well-off buyers may not mind paying a little extra for acquiring the prized status symbol. It makes economic sense also. Why should the government subsidise diesel for a luxury car or SUV? An additional levy may not hurt large car manufacturers much. Despite a hefty rise in the oil prices and a 24 per cent excise duty for big cars compared to 12 per cent for small cars, the sales of the former have gone up. Besides, there has been a significant jump in the number of imported cars. These need not be given the benefits available to small cars. Last month the Union Finance Minister had rejected the demand for tax concessions to large vehicles on the ground that these were fuel inefficient. The government has in the last two budgets cut the duty on small cars. This has been done to make India a global car-manufacturing hub. Revenue and employment potential of such a possibility is huge. As the government is paying a high price for heavily subsidising oil, it had appointed a committee under BK Chaturvedi to suggest a way out. The committee has suggested a monthly increase in the oil prices—a proposal no political party is inclined to support in an election year. More significantly, the committee has proposed a dual pricing mechanism for auto fuels. It has suggested that diesel should cost Rs 2 a litre more in big cities under the tag of “Metro extra”. This is welcome. To discourage environmental pollution, the government should go in for more green taxes. The more one pollutes, the more he should pay.
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Enter Chiranjeevi THE entry of Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi into politics promises a new dimension to politics in Andhra Pradesh, at least until the next Lok Sabha elections. Although he had made known his intention to join the political fray a few months ago, the actual announcement on Sunday appears to have had an electrifying effect. Political parties in the state are on their mark but at a loss as to how they should react, especially with the formal launch of his party just a week away. As of now Chiranjeevi enjoys the advantages of being a familiar face, a mammoth fan following, the ability to pull in the crowds and the support to raise funds for his political venture. He has made the necessary gestures of seeking the goodwill of other parties by speaking to their leaders. While refusing to identify his potential opponents, he has given the impression that he would be looking for allies as he moves forward. Chiranjeevi’s plunge is bound to make the political stage in AP more crowded and poses a challenge to both the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the ruling Congress, though the former appears to be more threatened at the moment. This may well be because the actor invoked the name of the late N T Rama Rao and cited him as the inspiration for his political foray. Even before Chiranjeevi’s party and its plans have been revealed, the desertions have begun from the TDP as well as the Congress party. Congress MP Hariram Jogaiah is reported to have quit the party as well as the Lok Sabha. TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu, in a bid to hold on to his flock, is reported to have cut short his statewide tour by a month and returned to Hyderabad. While the Congress party has the difficult task of coping with the anti-incumbency factor, which may work to the benefit of Chiranjeevi, the TDP fears losing its appeal as the main challenger to the Congress. The others on the scene – notably the BJP, the CPI, the CPM, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti – are yet to chalk out their moves for the electoral battles ahead. In such a scenario, Chiranjeevi’s arrival can make the best-laid plans of mice and men go awry.
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Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris
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The water question AMIDST the hefty energy crunch, let us not forget the equally pressing water problem. India’s water problem is acute and growing - in three directions. In large parts of rural India, as also in many urban localities, water pollution, brackish water and water contamination with chemical effluents are a major cause for disease. Second, there is a growing water shortage in urban areas, especially the big metropolitan centres such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Third, entire pockets like Saurashtra and Kutch, coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and some landlocked areas of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with scanty rainfall face perennial water scarcity. Add to this the growing population, and the shortage of potable water becomes ever more a serious challenge. A holistic approach is called for to cope with the twin problems of water pollution and fresh water needs of the country in the coming decades. India’s nuclear technology comes to the rescue and is already playing a significant role. The good news is that water has become a technology mission for Atomic Energy R&D centres, with BARC in the forefront. Though hardly known, nuclear technology is already cutting into the problem of water management on both aspects - water pollution and augmenting water supplies. Nuclear technology is in action with significant innovation and projects that are grappling with this dual water problem. First the problem of pollution: a major contribution by BARC in this area is development of Reverse Osmosis (RO) technology. Now fully developed and tested, RO technology has been transferred by BARC to a dozen or more competent companies which are already manufacturing and supplying RO units and plants on a large scale, and RO technology has spread country-wide. BARC is actively participating in the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission and has set up a number of reverse osmosis plants in several villages during the last two decades. Another notable contribution in tackling water pollution accruing from BARC’s R&D is what is termed “Online Domestic Water Purifier”. This technology too has been fully developed and tested, and has been transferred to several companies for commercial manufacture and countrywide distribution. Next, the challenge of augmenting potable water resources: this requires a national effort. Nuclear technology is already making a significant contribution in this challenging task. Intensive R&D at BARC has focused on developing water desalination technologies, including seawater desalination. This R&D know-how is being harnessed in several projects, paving the way for a chain of desalination projects. Ongoing, a major project for augmenting potable water resources being undertaken by BARC, is the sea water Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Project (NDDP) at Kalpakkam, coupling heat released by the two reactors of the Madras Atomic Power Station into a hybrid - reverse osmosis-cum-multi-stage flash - technologies plant of 6300 cubic metre per day capacity. MSF technology is producing 4500 m3/d quantity and SWRO technology 1800 m3/d. This hybrid technology seawater desalination plant has been in operation for over two years, and its experience could be multiplied at a large number of locations where waste heat could be coupled with water desalination projects to produce potable water. BARC efforts are now being focused on design and development of very large-size MSF-RO hybrid plants for seawater desalination. Enough expertise is available at BARC for this project. Prospects are of putting up a number of large-sized plants of a million gallons a day capacity for brackish and sea-water desalintion and treatment for water reuse. If BARC R&D could be joined with similar work being undertaken by other national institutions, these plans could have a big impact on the acute water situation in the country. In some respects, an even greater contribution, using isotopic nuclear technology in meeting water shortage, is related to the scarce water resources of hilly areas. Now in the process of development, the project harnesses what is known as Isotope Hydrogeochemical Techniques, a nuclear technology, for the recharge of drying springs in mountains. A major breakthrough has been attained in the project to recharge drying springs in mountainous region of Gaucher in Uttarakhand. The Gaucher project is a sort of prototype for similar projects for the recharge of drying springs in mountainous areas elsewhere. In the mountainous region of Uttarakhand, springs are the only available source of water for domestic and agricultural use. Insufficient spring water due to low discharge causes a lot of hardships to the inhabitants there in summer. So, when the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr R Chidambaram, was requested for help in dealing with the problem of drying springs in the Gaucher mountainous area of Uttarakhand, this prototype project was set in motion. Dr Chidambaram harnessed the BARC Isotope Applications Division for initiating this model project, fully keeping in view its vast potential. Dr Anil Joshi of Himalayan Environmental studies and Conservation also joined force. The project was initiated in December 2003 with first visit of BARC scientists to the Gaucher mountainous area. The project has been intensively researched. The first part consists of identifying the recharge zones related to the respective drying springs in the Gaucher mountainous area. These studies entail mapping out the entire area, locating the sources of spring water, testing the quality of spring water, and the direction of water flow through the mountainous region. It had to be ascertained first as to which catchment area or water body was actually recharging the useful springs or wells within a location. To find out the exact recharge characteristics and relationship between the catchment areas and downstream wells and springs, the isotope hydrology technique was used. Based on the findings, the second part of the project was undertaken, namely, to build up infiltration tanks/check bunds at suitable zones for the collection of rainwater. A catchment area development programme was taken up and structures such as check dams, infiltration wells and contour trenches were constructed to ensure revitalization of the water bodies in higher reaches and also sufficient recharge for the wells and springs downstream. Using the stored water for recharging these drying springs in summer has been a remarkable success - drying springs have been rejuvenated, discharges have gone up by two-three times and new springs have emerged. Based on the success of this project, a replication programme has now been taken up in 10 locations: five in Uttarakhand, three in Himachal Pradesh and two in J&K.
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Double-digit inflation KIDS of the present generation are not only smarter but are also more frank, free and forthcoming in their comments and remarks. I had a taste of this recently when my two grand daughters visited us during their summer vacation. They like the city beautiful, the spacious gardens in our sector, wide roads and, much more than that, they are away from the strict disciplinary regime charted out by their mamma, enjoying the pampering of their Nani. Their vocabulary surprises me and their observations are revealing. They like to accompany us everywhere and observe everything. Sia, the younger one, once asked me, “Nanu what is this Tavern?” Ana her elder sister promptly replied: “Did not you notice this in that Hollywood Boom Boom movie where the cowboys with their big hats and guns were sitting and drinking”. “Nanu, have the cowboys come to Chandigarh that they have opened Taverns in each sector.” “No, there are more than one Taverns in each sector. After all we are becoming modernised, people sit here and drink merrily.” “But why, can’t drink at home?” “They do not want their wives, mothers and children to see that”. “Ho, so that they can drink as much as they want, but surely they are seen returning home dead drunk.” “I do not know” said I. “But Nanu, the health Minister, Dr Ramados, has been after Big B and SRK that they should not be seen drinking in the movies and TV; and here the government is doing open advertisement for alcohol, what a stupid contrast.” I did not want to tell them that the government was earning millions of rupees from these ahatas and taverns and this revenue helps policy makers and executives in many ways. The kids watch television, Pogo and Cartoon network, but at times they have to share their television with us and watch news channels also. On one such occasion, Ana asked me: “Nanu, what is this double figure inflation? I explained to her and she remarked, “oh that is why samosa now costs Rs 6 in our school canteen”. “You eat junk food in the school” I screamed, does your mother know this.” “Yes, yes, said Sia, Nanu we eat 90 per cent healthy good-fruits, eggs, fish, almonds, soups and juices and 10 per cent junk food-samosas, chips, pizza, burger and all. Good combination for our tongues. But everything is becoming very costly, we have to ask mamma to increase our pocket money. Once in Sector 17, we went through four parking lots in a period of two hours. Ana was surprised, “Nanu, you paid parking fees four times in one sector only, why can’t they have a better and more friendly arrangement like you park anywhere in the sector and pay as per the time period. I could not tell them that this was another way of the government extracting more money from every citizen, like increased taxations, water, electricity, vat and service charges, entertainment and education cess etc. etc. The two little kids also noted the new electricity poles erected on Dakshin Marg. “Why are the old ones being replaced. They seem to be alright.” “I do not know darling, let us go home.” I could not tell them that every project benefits someone directly or
indirectly, who bothers about cost or feasibility. But as I said earlier, the kids are very smart. Ana said “But Nanu, if you have to pay more for everything than you also have to earn more.” She was hundred per cent correct. By hook or crook, you have to earn more in salary, in business and in everything. It can be done by escalating the cost, don’t mind if it is in two digits or more, you have to meet the unending requirements and this leads to a vicious circle. Increasing inflation is the obvious result. Who bothers about it. The government hospitals charge lakhs of rupees for renting a medicine shop in its premises, where from the shopkeeper will get the rental, from the pockets of his customers; a shop in Sector 17 pays a monthly rental of Rs 20 lakh, he has to get it from his customers, and the customers in their turn recover it from somewhere else! A student pays increased fees in IITs, IIMs, professional colleges. They can’t wait till they pass out and earn. Their parents have to resort to all tricks — and this we call modern
civilisation.
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Victory for democracy Pervez Musharraf, at last, has ceased to be the President of Pakistan. But he has relinquished power obviously against his wishes, as the former Chief of Army Staff last year doffed his uniform, which he described as his “second skin”. He had calculated that the PPP-PML (N)-ANP-JUI (Fazalur Rehman) coalition government, formed after the February elections, will fall under the weight of its own contradictions. The Musharraf camp celebrated the withdrawal of Nawaz Sharif’s party from the government, which came about because of the differences between the PML (N) leader and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari over the issue of restoration of the judiciary’s status quo ante. Musharraf and his supporters felt that the next significant development could be the snapping of relations between the traditional political rivals. But, to their discomfiture, that did not happen. As his address to the Pakistani nation on Monday showed, Musharraf unrealistically believed that his “achievements” on various fronts and his willingness to cooperate with the elected rulers would make the coalition government tolerate his presence as President. Owing to his unending lust for power, he did not realise that what he wished for was just not possible because of two primary reasons. One, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was deposed by Musharraf as Army Chief in a bloodless coup in 1999, was an important member of the ruling coalition. Two, allowing Musharraf to continue as the Head of State with the power to destroy the democratic process would have amounted to keeping the Damocles’ sword hanging over the government’s head. As the situation prevails today, the Musharraf factor has disappeared from the political scene in Pakistan. If it was a major threat to the democratic process that began with the holding of elections, it was also playing the cementing role for the ruling coalition. How and whether the coalition will survive and promote the cause of democracy remains to be watched with much curiosity. It is, perhaps, for the first time that the democratic forces have succeeded in humbling a dictator in Pakistan’s checkered history. There is another force that will claim credit for the unceremonious ouster of Musharraf —- the extremists and their sympathisers. What these elements have been working for has been accomplished in a democratic manner. The retired General had begun the process of his political demise the day he decided to ride two horses at the same time in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the US in 2001. He saved Pakistan from turning into another Afghanistan by succumbing to the US pressure to become its ally in the war against terrorism. But he also quietly provided refuge to the Taliban-Al-Qaida leadership in its lawless tribal areas. As a result, Pakistan has been suffering all these years and may have to suffer more in the days to come. Musharraf could have become part of history long ago if he did not have the Army’s backing. Even till the day he announced his resignation as President, he had been banking on the support of this most powerful institution in Pakistan. The Army now could not help him retain his hold over power, but it understandably did play a role in his exit on his, more or less, own terms. The top Generals, including Army Chief Gen Ashfaque Kiyani, did not want their former boss to suffer more. They are believed to have strongly lobbied against the impeachment of Musharraf. The former President could not allow himself to face the impeachment proceedings and go down fighting not only because the Pakistan Army’s top brass was opposed to it. He was also convinced at the end of it all that an overwhelming majority of the people hated him like anything. According to a recently released survey by the US-based International Republican Institute, only 15 per cent of the population in Pakistan favoured the policies he pursued, and over 70 per cent opposed his cooperation with the US. He had come to be regarded as the most visible symbol of what the US was doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His most powerful backer, the Bush administration, too, turned its back on him mainly because his continuance in the position he held was only strengthening the raging anti-Americanism all over Pakistan. He had thus become a liability for the US. Moreover, the Americans now had a good replacement for Musharraf —the PPP’s Zardari, who was back to the political centre-stage as a result of the National Reconciliation Order issued last year under US pressure. Surprisingly, Musharraf was not much bothered about the decline of his popularity. Blinded by power, he ignored the fact that there was little difference between anti-Americanism and anti-Musharrafism after the lawyers launched a successful drive against his rule when he sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry in March 2007, his first major blunder. Musharraf’s following had never been as low it could be seen last year. He made the second biggest mistake of his political career in November last year by resorting to emergency rule. This further increased people’s hatred for him. Perhaps, Musharraf never thought of looking for an exit route at the appropriate time. That is why he committed follies after follies, as he indirectly admitted while concluding his televised address.
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Himachal Pradesh’s unrealistic herbal dreams THE Himachal Pradesh Forest Department (HPFD) has launched a campaign under which more than 12 lakh families will plant 14 lakh medicinal plants on their private lands. The campaign, ostensibly taken up due to the low survival rate of trees planted during vana mahotsavas and the HPFD’s own afforestation drives, aims at making Himachal Pradesh a “herbal state”. The forest lands constitute more than two-thirds of the total area of Himachal Pradesh while private lands are about 20 per cent. Forests are common resources over which the local people have rights of usage. In the absence of robust village-level mechanisms to protect the government’s plantations, these plantations are destroyed by the very people they are supposed to benefit. With the HPFD facing a shortage of staff and the wide areas that each forest guard is supposed to monitor, it is only if the local people and the department come together to protect the forest resources can they survive. This holds true not only for the new plantations but also for the existing forests that provide people with fodder, firewood, herbs and timber — critical resources whose contribution is getting more crucial in times of rising fuel prices. Villagers are fighting a losing battle to protect their existing forests through efforts inadequately supported by the HPFD. The author has interacted with many such villagers in the Karsog, Gohar and Dalhousie forest divisions of the state. The contention that this plantation exercise will make Himachal Pradesh a herbal state is far-fetched. The state is naturally endowed with a variety of medicinal and aromatic plants that are found in our forests and grasslands, especially in the temperate areas. The roots or rhizomes of most of these plants are collected by the local people for selling to their local traders and they finally end up in the wholesale markets in Amritsar and Delhi. These herbs form the basis of livelihood for the majority of poor people in the higher reaches of the state who sell them against cash or in return for commodities of daily use. Sadly, these plants are facing the threat of extinction due to the lack of community mechanisms for ensuring that there is no unhealthy competition between the collectors and that the benefits from harvest are shared equitably between them. As a result, premature, excessive and illegal harvesting is rampant, gravely threatening the livelihood of the people dependent upon herb collection. The Churah valley in the Chamba region has been stripped of a number of medicinal plant varieties to the extent that the poor collectors from this area have to risk limb and life to go across Pir Panjal and collect herbs to sell to their local traders. Twentyone of the 44 commercially traded medicinal plant species of the state are on the Red Data list issued by the IUCN. This is the real herbal wealth which not only sustains the poor people of the state but also hold the potential for enhancing livelihood opportunities in times to come. Can the state dream of becoming a herbal state while this wealth is being lost? And yes, initiating programmes that envisage production of these herbs in agricultural lands would not serve the purpose. Most of these herbs have a gestation period of 3-4 years and it is too much of a risk for the marginal farmers to prefer them over conventional crops. A number of these herbs are found at altitudes where hardly any agricultural lands exist. As a result, if there is any place where these medicinal plants can be commercially produced in a big way, it is only in the forest lands. But there can be no hope of protecting any forest resources in the state, including new plantations, without facilitating community-based institutions for planning and managing the plantation and sharing the benefits of the produce. Also of critical importance is the provisioning of these institutions with adequate legal powers to ensure adherence to management mechanisms. This exactly was the primary motive behind initiating the government’s own Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, started with fanfare more than 15 years ago. It is sad that the HPFD, instead of rectifying the causes behind the depletion and degradation of forest resources, has embarked on “afforesting” private lands on which people already have planted a variety of plants useful to them. The current plantation campaign at best seems like taking the easy way out to gain publicity while ignoring the real issues that cause these failures in the first place.
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Is this any way to rebuild Iraq? ACROSS the Middle East, from Abu Dhabi to Yemen, the dizzying rise in oil prices has fueled a construction and employment boom. Yet in Iraq, one-quarter of the population remains jobless, and Baghdad gets only 11 hours of electricity a day. Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes and are urgently in need of resettlement. After five years of war, the country is still desperately in need of rebuilding. It’s not that Iraq has failed to share in the oil windfall. Iraq sits atop the world’s third-biggest known oil reserves, and the Iraqi government keeps a mounting pile of petrodollars firmly tucked away in American banks. A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that Iraqi oil revenues will reach as high as $85 billion this year, resulting in a budget surplus of as much as $50 billion. But despite all the money that is pouring in, Iraq is not taking responsibility for its own reconstruction. Instead, the U.S. military is footing the reconstruction bill. Over the last two years, while Iraq has earned nearly $100 billion in oil revenues (and spent just $2 billion on capital investments such as roads, water and electricity), U.S. taxpayers have plowed $48 billion into reconstruction activities in Iraq. About half of that has gone to the oil and electricity infrastructures. The U.S. also has helped to renovate 3,000 schools, train 30,000 teachers, distribute 8 million textbooks and rebuild irrigation infrastructure for 400,000 people, as well as fund projects to improve drinking water, bridges, roads, sewage treatment, airports and, of course, oil pipelines and refineries. True, it was the United States that invaded Iraq, and none of the work we’ve done there since is adequate compensation for the five years of suffering that the Iraqi people have endured. But at a time when the U.S. economy is weak and our own bridges, roads and airports are in desperate need of repair, there is a real question of whether we can sustain subsidizing Iraq’s rebuilding on this scale. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Iraqis pay a heavily subsidized $1.35 for a gallon of gas at the pumps in their country, while the U.S. military — the largest single consumer of oil in the world — is stuck paying world prices of $3.23 (and as high as $8 a gallon for certain specialized jet fuels.) Kuwait, by contrast, offers U.S. forces a steep discount on fuel purchases. U.S. military operations in Iraq gobble up more than 1 million gallons a day to generate power at bases and to fuel trucks, planes, tanks and ships. Even more fuel is required for cargo and logistics: 70 percent of the gas-guzzling military truck convoys in Iraq are simply carrying petroleum products around the country. Fuel consumption per service person in Iraq is 16 times what it was in World War
II. By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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